The Internal Auditor, Management, and the Forensic Accountant Essay

The Internal Auditor, Management, and the Forensic Accountant - Essay Example These measurements are carried out by continuous auditing mechanisms practiced by Internal Auditors such that timely alerts can be raised against negative trends or non-compliances within the system. Such auditing can continuously evolve quick fixes in the form of corrective actions that can be taken on a fly and also evolve long term effective preventive actions. Moreover, if data integration is carried out effectively by applying effective integrated frameworks like Balanced Score cards and using corporate governance tools like Business Activity Monitoring or Business Performance Monitoring, then continuous monitoring of risks and fraud become a reality. In this paper, we review literature pertaining to roles and responsibilities of Internal Auditors and their responsibilities to consider Fraud in audit of Financial Reports. First Literature: Understanding Internal Audit by Rickard, Peter, pages 30 to 34; Journal published by Australian Accountant, Melbourne in April 1994. This Journal has been included herewith because it presents a comprehensive discussion on role of Internal Auditors and the expectations from them from a legacy perspective and Peter Rickard is an Accountant specialized in Audit and Fraud Control along with being the member of Performance Management International. As per Peter, the management of an organization expects that the Internal Auditor would keep a close watch on the actual implementation of their instructions & policies in the organization and provide feedback on who is not performing in the organization. In addition, he argues that the Internal Auditors are expected to ensure compliance with Government Policies, Legislations and Regulations. He explained the management expectations from an Internal Auditor under three categories - Functional, Personal and Other. Under funct ional, it is argued that an Internal Auditor is expected to serve as the eyes & ears of the management and under personal, it is argued that the internal auditors should be well qualified, trained, certified & possesses high ethics & integrity. Under the category other, it is argued that the audit findings & fraud detection should be timely & proactive such that effective corrective actions can be taken without delay. The author argues that Internal Auditors cannot be made scapegoats for everything going wrong in the organization because they primarily work on audits based on samples which may not be the true representation of the actual problems. As per the Author, the primary tasks of internal auditors are - Audit Planning, Audit Reporting, Measuring Audit Performance, and bridging the gaps by taking corrective & preventive actions. They should not be taken as "negative informers" who always report "bad news". The perspective of this author is to save an Internal Auditor from over expectations of a Management. However, in the modern world the businesses drive what the